


"I love you"

by Rangergirl3



Series: GenTron Week 2019 [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Blood and Injury, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Keith (Voltron) Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22283266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rangergirl3/pseuds/Rangergirl3
Summary: The Galra don't understand friendship.It doesn't matter, though.
Relationships: Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt
Series: GenTron Week 2019 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1444573
Comments: 22
Kudos: 137





	"I love you"

The sentries dragged the two of them down the purple-lit hallway. With every step, they drew farther and farther away from any hope of rescue.

The rebels weren't far behind. The other Paladins were only dobashes behind - but -

When their small group came to a corner, the sentry holding Pidge by one of her arms began to turn left, while the one holding Keith pushed him towards the right-hand passage.

Panic, pure and instinctual, overtook Keith's sense of self-preservation.

If they got separated -

_No._

\- Pidge, alone, taken to Sendak -

**_No!_ **

He spun in place, ducking under the sentry's outstretched arm, and hit the sentry keeping Pidge in place with as much force as he could manage, slamming the sentry back up against the corridor wall, and its grip on Pidge loosened just enough to allow her to twist free, but the first sentry had already recovered and was reaching towards them both.

Pidge was closest to it.

She going to get caught.

No.

No, she wasn't.

Keith slammed his shoulder into her own. The force sent her tumbling away from the mechanical sentries, practically catapulting her a few precious yards closer to the door, even as the first sentry's metallic fingers closed tight around Keith's right wrist. He was yanked backwards, away from Pidge, who had just regained her balance. She hesitated for the merest fraction of a second before Keith's roar broke through her shock.

" _Run_ , Pidge!"

Then he was pinned against the floor, a metal foot digging into the small of his back, and hearing the whining pitch of laser guns being activated.

_Run, Pidge, run run run run run -_

He heard footsteps. fast and light and -

_Gunfire._

He couldn't look up, he couldn't see if she'd made it, all he could do as the sentry slammed his head against the metal floor again and again and _again_ was to close his eyes and hope that Pidge had made it out.

_Please, Pidge, please, make it out of here, please, please -_

The gunfire ceased. The sentry activated the alarm system.

"Prisoner GN-8675 has evaded capture. Activate proceedure -"

It was then that the sentry beating Keith's head against the floor took hold of his cuffed wrists, hauled them above his head, and began to drag him backwards down the left hallway. Keith's mind went fuzzy, and he failed to link the sounds together with any meaning. 

Time passed. 

He tried to keep his eyes open, but...

His head hurt. His eyes, his arms, his wrists.

God, his wrists.

It felt like...

He wasn't sure.

It felt...like...

Sendak's voice sounded above him.

Keith still couldn't understand.

His head hurt too much.

He knew there were sounds around him, loud sounds, angry snarls and raised voices and -

Something white-hot shoved deep into his right palm, while something deathly cold encased the fingers of his left hand. It didn't stop there, but spread to the rest of him in an instant. It was like being burned and frozen, all at the same time, and it hurt too much to describe, it was being caught between two opposing forces and being torn apart because they weren't meant to exist that close together. 

He screamed, then.

You didn't need to listen to words, or say them, not if all you could do was scream because it hurt.

There was noise, more light, more shouting, more pain.

It hurt. It hurt so much.

He might have begged for the pain to stop, but he couldn't - he couldn't speak. Not with the pain burning and freezing, not with the angry voices and bright lights and -

Someone shouted his name.

Dim memory flared.

_Pidge._

Keith couldn't find the courage to raise his head, or open his eyes, because - 

She hadn't gotten out. She'd been caught, and brought back, and now Sendak would hurt her too.

Keith didn't want that to happen.

Someone snarled a question at him. It sounded like they wanted him to -

Keith didn't understand why they were saying that he hated Pidge now, so he shook his head from side to side, because no, he didn't hate Katie, not at all, why would they think that? Why would _anyone_ think that?

Pidge was crying. Keith didn't want her to cry. He tried remembering how to speak, but it - it was so difficult. Everything hurt too much.

_No, Pidge, no, don't listen to them - I don't hate you, I could never hate you -_

Then there was more pain, more screaming, more...everything.

It stopped just long enough for the angry, shouting voice to demand that he tell Pidge - tell her - 

_No_. **_No_** , Keith thought, _no, I'm never telling her that, because it's not true._

Someone strong hauled Keith upright by the collar, shook him like a rag doll. Keith didn't understand what it was saying, but it sounded really mad.

It was furious because Keith wouldn't say what it wanted him to say.

Pidge was still crying.

Keith found that he could still remember how to say one thing, so he said it.

It wasn't what the loud, angry, furious voice had told him to say.

It was something entirely different.

"I l-love you, Pidge."

The furious voice let out a roar, and then -

Keith wasn't sure if he hit the floor first, or a wall and then the floor, but he knew, for certain, that the crunching sound of bones inside of him was not a good sign.

He couldn't even scream now.

It hurt, too much, it was too much and he wanted it to stop, please, please, make it stop -

A huge, clawed hand closed over his face and yanked on his hair so that Keith just dangled from the claw like a broken doll.

_Oh, fuck, oh, shit, I'm dead, I'm dead, it's going to crush my skull and I'll be dead -_

More lights, more noise, more pounding footsteps. 

A burst of blue light, and then Keith fell. He hit the floor, but against his will, he retained enough fractured awareness to hear and feel and sense movement and pain and noise.

_Godgodgodgodgod pleasepleasepleaseplease make it stop make it stop make it stop_

Someone rolled him onto his back, took him in their arms. He kept his eyes shut, because he couldn't do anything else to escape what was coming.

A voice said his name, like he was important.

That confused him.

He didn't understand why a Galra would do that. 

He wasn't one of them.

_He was just a worthless halfbreed._

He didn't belong anywhere. Not on Earth, not as part of the Empire, not as one of the Paladins. 

_He should just give up and die._

He just didn't want to hurt anymore.

Now more voices, raised, but - not angry. 

_Scared._

The person holding him stood up, and Keith tried to scream, because the movement jostled his injuries, but all he could do was cough up blood, which made it even harder to breathe.

They were running, now, and it was worse, it was so, so much worse, because it took every stabbing pain and multiplied it by ten - a hundred - a thousand -

He was too busy gasping for air to notice when they turned a corner and came out into a blue-lit room that smelled of disinfectant and medicine. 

As they put him down onto a flat surface, more of the too-bright lights came on, and it was too white and harsh and it scared him, it scared him even more than the pain did.

 _The pain was going to get worse,_ _it would never get better, he wouldn't even be able to die, he'd just exist, like this, screaming in agony for all eternity_

Keith coughed up blood, gurgling because he couldn't breathe anymore.

His chest hurt. He didn't want to hurt. He just wanted _not to hurt_.

Something - a cover, a shield of some kind - blocked out some of the light, and the pain began to fade into the growing blackness that threatened to swallow him.

He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, because he wanted the pain to stop.

Fading wasn't enough. 

He couldn't be strong anymore.

_-please, make it stop -_

The blackness took over, and the last thing he knew, with absolute certainty, was that right at the end, Pidge's voice had merged with his own.

_pleasepleasepleaseplease_

* * *

Pidge was the first one at Keith's side when he woke up. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he heard was a muffled "I love you too, Keith," from where PIdge had buried her face in his shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Phew, finally finished all the prompts for Gentron Week 2019. :D Thank you for reading! Please know that all comments, kudos, and feedback are much appreciated, and it especially gives me energy/helps me stay encouraged to write even more stuff! <3 It really means a lot to hear back from you! :-) <3 <3
> 
> I'm on Tumblr - come say hi! <3 :-)


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